


... Who Needs Enemies?

by Kathar



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Happy Ending, M/M, Shovel Talk, and senior SHIELD agents, brief break up, friends who shouldn't try to "help"
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-25
Updated: 2013-10-25
Packaged: 2017-12-30 09:56:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1017220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kathar/pseuds/Kathar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Clint and Phil get together at long last, shortly after they bring in the Black Widow, their friends give Clint the traditional shovel talk.</p><p>It doesn't exactly go as planned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	... Who Needs Enemies?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Saone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saone/gifts).



> I saw this tumblr post from Saone, and was bitten by a particularly nasty plot bunny:
> 
>  
> 
> _Is it wrong that I’d really love to read a story where a shovel talk backfires? Like, Clint and Phil start to date, and all these scary, trained professionals start cornering Clint in various parts of HQ, telling him what to expect if he does anything to hurt Phil. And Clint - who, okay, might not be the greatest person in the world, but he’s trying to be a good guy these days - decides screw it, he doesn’t need this kind of negativity in his life, especially from people who are supposed to have his back in the field. So he breaks it off with Phil, who is a little hurt, then a lot furious when he finds out what caused Clint to back off._

"You were right, Coulson." Clint said without preamble, and Phil took a moment to finish his work before looking up.

"Best beignets outside of the French Quarter?" he asked, grinning to himself, and raised his eyes.

The smile collapsed as he looked at Clint Barton, hovering in his doorway. That was not the look of a man full of sugary deep-fried goodness. It was much closer to the look of a man whose doughnuts had ended up mashed on the third rail of a subway line.

"Yeah," Clint said, with a kind of three-days-dead grin, "they were. But no, I mean-- you were right."

"About?"

"You and me."

"Um, what about us?" Phil said, but the sinking feeling in his stomach told him he already knew, and he cursed quietly to himself. 

Months-- years-- Clint had spent doggedly working to overcome Phil's doubts that they could manage to have both a professional and a romantic relationship. Years that had ended a month ago, when Phil in his relief had walked into the hospital room where Clint was recovering from the op that had brought in the Black Widow, swept him into his arms and-- it was apparently a really bad time to remember what had happened next. Pity that, since it had been very literally the _best month of his entire life_ and it looked like that was all it was going to be. Still, maybe Clint would prove him wrong. Maybe the next words out of his mouth weren't going to be--

"I can't jeopardize my place at SHIELD, Phil, I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."

Shit.

"I mean, SHIELD is my home, shitty as it is, and now-- I couldn't leave Nat here alone, no one trusts her. I can't risk _her_ as well as me. I'm already on shaky ground, and I just can't do this right now, worrying that anytime I blink wrong at you someone's gonna take offense on your behalf. And you don't actually control everything at SHIELD, no matter what the junior agents say, so you can't stop them. It's just better to do it now, before it gets worse. But, uh, I have to ask you-- shit." 

He wrapped his arms, his strong, elegant arms, around him like a toddler with a stomach ache and looked away. 

"I have to ask you to be the bigger man, and not transfer me. Us. I'm sorry, it's not fair, but-- if you don't protect us, no one's gonna. And I need you to be my handler right now more than I need you to be my... guy."

"You know I would never let you down," Phil whispered. Clint-- Barton-- nodded his head miserably. 

__

"Ms. Romanov, may I ask you a question?" Phil kept himself a deferential distance from where Natasha Romanov, the Black Widow and until very recently near the top of SHIELD's terminate-on-sight list, was seated. The little table was the only furniture other than a bed in the narrow quarters she’d been assigned when she was released from the detention levels. She raised an eyebrow, closed her book, and gestured to the open seat next to her.

"Did... Agent Barton talk to you today?"

"He did," she said, voice wary. "why do you ask?"

"I am wondering," _why he broke my heart_ , Phil thought, but that wasn’t really it. After spending a half hour curled up on the couch in his office, in what he was fairly certain was a state of shock, Phil's cursed analytical brain had started to work again. Had begun to pick apart Barton's choice of words, had begun to remind himself that Barton had never lied to him. Would never say _it's not you_ if it was. "I'm wondering if he mentioned any conversations that he might have had with other agents lately. Regarding... us." 

It might have been a trick of the light, but he could have sworn her eyes narrowed. It would have been the biggest tell he'd seen from her.

"I am not an informer," she said.

"I know-- I know. I'm not mad at him and I promise there will be no repercussions on you. From any direction. I just need to know what happened." 

"Clint is a grown man. He makes his own decisions."

"He does. In this case, he decided to break up with me to keep from risking his career here-- and risking yours."

Phil had thought his Russian more than up to par, but this was an entire new vocabulary, and he wished she'd slow it down just a bit.

"I did not ask him to do so, I promise."

"I know you didn't. I just need to know what gave him the impression he needed to, and I think he told you. _Please_ , Natasha. Please...."

"Let you help him?"

"Let me help us." She regarded him for a long moment, and he sat forward, breathed in, and tried his best to drop all his masks in front of her, this woman out of Clint's past, whom he'd been sent to kill but risked everything to save. 

"Hrmph," she said at last. "He tells me this all started at a place called the Pig and Fiddle...."

__

The Pig and Fiddle, despite its twee name, was a solid little pub with good 2-for-1s at happy hour and occasional low-key karaoke nights. It was close enough to SHIELD for agents to frequent it, but not so close that it became anything like a cop bar for the agency. Phil, Jasper Sitwell, Maria Hill, Melinda May, and Jimmy Woo were all sitting around a table doing their normal Friday "debrief," which currently involved a very thorough post-mortem on the latest production from the nibbles menu.

"You're lookin' kind of down today," Sitwell said around a mouthful of artichoke dip. "You and Clint have a tiff or something?" Phil snorted.

"You could say that. We broke up."

He could practically hear four sets of eyes locking onto him, and took a deep breath before looking up.

"Aw, man, that sucks," Sitwell said, giving his back an awkward pat. "You two seemed so happy."

"Yeah," Woo added. "What happened? Why did you dump him?"

Phil blinked. 

"I didn't. He broke up with me. And to be frank, it's... a really unpleasant feeling." He hadn't meant to choke up as he said it, but the effect was gratifying. May reached over and gave one hand a squeeze, and Hill pushed the fried pickles towards him.

"But it look him years to get you to go out with him! What the fuck was he thinking?" That was Sitwell again, and Woo, because apparently they were brain twins now, followed that up with:

"Aw, man, d'you mean we actually have to go and rough him up now? Because I am not in good enough shape for that."

"Why would you need to rough him up?" Phil asked. setting his beer down carefully on its sodden mat and lacing his fingers. 

"Aw, c'mon, Coulson, you know. The whole shovel talk thing? 'If you hurt my buddy, they'll never find your body,' that kinda thing."

"Huh. And you actually gave Clint the shovel talk?" He knew his voice was modulating into that calm, deep water place he let it reach during interrogations, and wondered if anyone had noticed.

"Yeah, he came out with us last night, we ribbed him a bit," Sitwell shifted, looking nervous. May looked at him sharply. "Didn't expect it to actually happen, especially so soon. That's fast."

"Even for Barton," Hill murmured. Phil felt the blood rush from his face, and was pretty sure his smile could have been used to cut ice.

"By 'a bit,' should I take it to mean you all, in concert, threatened my boyfriend-- my specialist, in fact-- with bodily harm and/or negative repercussions at SHIELD if something were to happen in our relationship?"

"Well, I wouldn't put it like that," Woo muttered, thoroughly spooked now.

"How _would_ you put it, Agent Woo?"

"Phil," Melinda May snapped, leaning forward. "We weren't really that serious. We were just letting him know we cared about you and wanted to make sure he treated you right. We're your friends."

"Friends," Phil spat, aware his control was dissolving strand by strand. "With friends like you I'll... damnit. I thought you were his friends, too!"

"We are!" Sitwell said. "We're buds. I love Barton like a cousin-- maybe a second one-- but we're your friends first, man. We were trying to help!"

"Next time _don’t_!" 

"Phil. Calm down. Yes, we may have gotten carried away a little. Perhaps... more than a little. It had been a long day and we were all... less than sober. But if he took it that seriously, there would have been problems anyway. We give each other grief all the time, and he joins in. He must have known we were joking." Hill's voice was sharp. 

Phil was standing before he realized it. Huh. Apparently he was going to rant now. 

"Known you were joking?" he hissed, attempting to keep his voice soft, "This is a guy who has a history of bad relationships, who took years to integrate into SHIELD fully, and who was barely a month removed from some very serious charges of insubordination-- from which he was cleared, I may remind you. Is that a man that four senior agents-- mostly his superiors-- should be joking with about things like that?"

If Phil had been bothering to pay attention, he would have noticed that Sitwell had frozen with an onion ring still halfway into his mouth, and now dripping ketchup onto his tie. Hill and May were headed for new personal bests in the "best imitation of an actual granite statue" competition, and Woo was checking his exits. Phil was not paying attention. He did stop long enough to allow May to swallow, and say:

"He's a top agent, Phil. One of the best we have. None of us would ever have intentionally--"

"Right. One of the best we have. Definitely the best I've had--" it was a measure of the situation that Woo did not snicker-- "and not coincidentally, also very dedicated to the top assassin in the world, whom he just brought in. This is not a man who can endure extra scrutiny being piled on him by friends right now, by people who should have his six. And despite that," his voice caught in his throat for a moment, "he trusted me enough to know I would keep the two of them safe, even though he broke up with me. That I would keep them under my protection _from SHIELD_ , which God knows they should never need." Sitwell gulped. May looked away. 

"Speaking of the assassin," Phil continued, "funnily enough, she never threatened me with anything. She told me she thought I could handle my own affairs and so could Clint." He unclenched his fists, crossed his arms over his chest, and watched them. "Which is more trust, from both of them, than any of you apparently put in me."

No one was meeting his eyes anymore, which was good, because now that his rage was draining in the face of their very evident mortification, Phil was embarrassed. And empty. And he realized he had no next step planned.

The five of them might have stayed there all night in a stew of regret, disappointment, and pale ale, except that at that moment, an archer walked into the bar.

__

 

Clint started backing up the moment he caught sight of the quintuplet of SHIELD agents, but Phil forced himself to catch the man's eye. He wasn't sure exactly what he was trying to communicate, but Clint gave a quick tiny nod like he would in the field, straightened himself, and came to heel next to Phil. 

Watching him, not the table, Phil noticed.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey," Phil replied. "This is a pleasant surprise."

"... Is it?"

"For me it is," he switched his gaze over to his friends briefly. "I'm going to go grab a beer. I'll leave you guys to... chat." 

He'd had harder walks in his life, away from armed guards across the Red Square, top secret intelligence hidden in his shoes, but not that many. 

The beer was halfway gone, foamy head clouding the sides of the pint glass, when Clint came over to lean next to him. 

"Apparently I was wrong and the junior agents were right; you really _do_ control everything at SHIELD." Phil turned.

It wasn't just Clint's voice that was lighter; everything about him seemed to have perked back up since their earlier conversation. 

"Thank you," he said. Phil shrugged. "No, seriously, thank you. For having my back.”

“Did they, um, apologize?”

“Man, Woo fucking hugged me. I am not comfortable with that. I’m not gonna say ‘we’re good,’ but it’ll work out. Actually? It doesn’t hurt to hear the Cavalry tell you that you’re her favorite sniper, you know? Hill was… Hill. She apologized for intruding in our relationship, and that’s more than I figured I’d get. Sitwell and I have been through worse. I’m impressed-- that’s four top agents you broke in one night. So, yeah, thanks. That's... more than I deserved from you; I know how much I hurt you."

"No, Clint," Phil grabbed his hand, had it firmly in his grip before it occurred to him he wasn't supposed to do that anymore. He didn't let go. "You deserved it. Of course you did. Even if... yes, you hurt me, okay? More than I expected."

"It wasn't that I didn't trust you to handle them, Phil, or even that I didn't want you to choose between us, I just couldn’t take any more--"

"I wasn't finished. And this is... difficult. I realize the relationship between us is-- _was_ \-- is?-- new, and fragile, and it made sense to give that up rather than risk your home, your career, or Natasha's new life. It still hurt, and what our friends did hurt, and it hurt me that you thought there was a good chance we would end up screwing something up. But what hurt worst? Was when I realized that I had spent so much time telling you we couldn't make a relationship work within SHIELD, pushing you off, that what should I expect? How was _one month_ of me realizing I'd been an idiot supposed to change that dynamic?"

"I've always trusted your read on a situation," Clint said softly.

"You certainly pushed back for someone who did," Phil rubbed his thumb along the back of Clint's hand. "And I was so grateful for that. I didn't fully realize how much of a risk you thought you were taking for me. So I'm sorry."

"Yeah, well, forget about it. No--" Clint put a hand to Phil's lips to stop him mid-interrupt. "I... tried to call you, once I’d had time for it to sink in. I wanted to talk. About that. I... not only was I not fair to you, but I realized we'd kind of already broken it permanently. Even if we broke up, everyone at SHIELD still sees us that way now. That you're compromised-- you know, it doesn't matter now."

"Doesn't it?" Phil searched his face intently. "Is that why you came here tonight?"

"Nope," Clint's smile was housecat-smug. "I came with them." He nodded towards the door. Natasha Romanov came in, eyes darting, followed by the tall, dark, and one-eyed shadow that was Director Fury. He waved at the senior agents still clustered around the table, then he and Natasha headed straight for the bar.

"Uh, Director?" Phil greeted him. "I didn't expect to see you here."

"Damn right you didn't, Phil." Nick Fury rumbled at him, waving over the bartender. "But we knew you'd be here, so we came anyway. We have some celebrating to do."

"We do?"

"Sure we do. I've made me a new strike team today. Hawkeye and the Black Widow," he nodded at Clint and Natasha, "and a senior field agent. He'll lead the ops, direct the team, but they report directly to me. Run solo if I want 'em to. Once Ms. Romanov is all settled in, anyway."

"Oh really?" Phil looked over at Clint, who was still smiling, and Natasha, who was looking slightly less like death warmed over.

"Yep. Really. That senior field agent, he already reports directly to me, but since I'm taking Agents out from under his supervision, I'm compensating with a security level. Sound good?"

"I... why?"

"Because I've always wanted to see how much trouble you could get into if I just let you go, Cheese. And because if I'm going to try and turn an ex-Red Room assassin, I'm fucking well going to do it right. My calls, my responsibility. No one who can fuck that up."

"Nick," Phil drew him aside, "I appreciate this, don't think I don't, but I've handled this on my own." He glanced over at the table, where Sitwell, Hill, May, and Woo were watching their Director and his entourage with really admirably blank faces.

"I never doubted you, Phil. And I didn't do this for you. I did it for me, because I'm a masochist. If I did anything for any other reason, it was for Barton and Romanov, because he needs to know SHIELD has his back, and she needs to see that we do. Now, I'm going to go join our very fine senior agents at that table to celebrate," he said, pointing, and hooked Natasha on his arm before gliding across the room.

"Um," Phil said, blinking. Clint sidled up next to him and bumped their shoulders together. Phil slid an arm tentatively around his waist, firmed it up when he got a shy smile in return.

"It certainly makes life easier," Clint mused. “Having the director at your back.”

"In some things it does. No one at SHIELD will be able to touch you or Natasha. And you deserve it; you more than deserve it. In other things? It is not a favor he did us. Think about how the rest of SHIELD sees me and Hill. No one messes with us, but how much do they share with us?" 

Clint nodded, even if he looked a little pale still at the mention of Hill. Phil squeezed him closer.

"For the record though, Clint? I'll take difficult, and even painful, with you. Just... _with_ you, please. No cutting losses until we've tried all other options." Clint looked over at him.

"I can... yeah. I can do that.” 

“Good. So. My place, your place, or stay here for a while?” He gestured toward the table of SHIELD agents, where Natasha Romanov and Melinda May were comparing something that caused them to make repetitive stabbing motions, and Jimmy Woo had nearly fallen off his chair trying to avoid them. 

“Man, I really like options one and two, but” Clint shrugged, “maybe we better go join the others so that things don’t get awkward again.”

“Right. Yes,” Phil sighed, and he really was not trying to avoid the four people he’d just reamed to within an inch of their lives, because that would be childish. “But then my place after?”

Clint just laughed and tugged him towards the table. 

Fin


End file.
